


Tender Curiosity

by Merixcil



Series: Tumblr Fics [84]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Roaring 20s
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24337621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merixcil/pseuds/Merixcil
Summary: It's the 1920's in Gotham. The smog of the arms factories has barely begun to settle, travelling circuses are all the rage, and Bruce Wayne can always find a good excuse to leave a party early
Relationships: Joker (DCU) & Bruce Wayne
Series: Tumblr Fics [84]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1759627
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Tender Curiosity

The walls are white and the columns are high and the art is the freshest art deco shipped in from New York and his suit is immaculate and the back of the dining hall has been painted to look like the night sky and the smell of champagne will never entirely leave his nostrils.

And the future is bright.

Strands of ribbon have been left over the furniture, decorating the room as wine stains never will. It would be a shame not to enjoy it while it lasts, as ribbon starts to fall out of fashion in favour of elastic hold ups and silk bows. The glint of a discarded earring glimmers among the thick rough of the carpet and he is reminded that he must set up a bowl by the front door for the trinkets his guests leave behind, to be retrieved when they arrive for the next party. There will always be another party, after all.

It takes most of the day to clear away the debris, leaving the house ready for a good scrubbing. The clean up effort alone means these events can never be more than a once a week occurrence, though if the master of the house could find it in his heart to pay for a housekeeper or a maid that might not be the case. But alas, his secrecy is more important than the kinks in an old man’s back.

The master himself does not emerge till evening, wearing the black jodhpurs and black eye-makeup he uses for his nightly excursions. “Did anyone notice I was gone?”

“Not at all, master Bruce.” Alfred hoists a stack of dirty dishes from the dining table. The washing up alone will take him all night.

The gas laps provide a pasty yellow spotlight that sucks the life from a man’s skin. He stands, in his Pierrot makeup and white overalls and lets them wash him down to size. The heavy thrum of traffic beating its way down Kane Avenue is infectious, though. Makes him dream of a screaming crowd.

Halley’s came to town last week, their clowns skipping through the motions to the delight of every child under ten in the East End of Gotham. It must be dull though, to be a freak and still have to stick to the script. The fun part, of course, is that the nice normal families think you’re just like them, and so you create an unforeseen layer to the performance that they can’t entirely appreciate. A freak pretending to be a non-freak pretending to be a freak.

The bright green of his hair below the cap he wears for his shows grows in that colour, and he’s yet to meet the doctor that can explain it. His mother couldn’t tell him either, though in all fairness she died before he could phrase the question properly.

Gotham stinks of smog and decay, the factories barely stopped pumping for a second during the war and in the aftermath everyone’s too desperate to unload their cash to care where the merchandise their dropping it on comes from. Everyone’s fixing to die here; the hard part is having a bit of fun before you have to go.

Bruce tries to fix his reflection with a disappointment modelled after his father. He stayed out too late last night, it would have been easy for the cops to catch him on his way home. The GCPD still by and large believe that the Batman is a hoax but he can’t see that they’d take much convincing with the way the city’s been going.

He needs to find a better way to move between buildings. Jumping is far too high risk, and sooner or later he’s going to have to find an excuse for a broken bone because of it. He tries to avoid running along the ground where possible, it makes him look too human when he needs to look like a god.

The consolidation of wealth in Gotham means the pickings for petty thieves are rich. They come together gangs, then disproportionately target the very poor to justify their continued existence. All it takes is a well told ghost story though, something blacker than black moving through the fog overhead and they scatter like rats.

The water in the sink is black with boot polish. It takes two days of regular cleaning to completely discard it from the nooks and crannies around his eyes but that’s no matter. Bruce covers every sojourn as Batman with a party to serve as his alibi, then he tells anyone he meets in the week after that his sunken eyes are all part of his hangover recovery process.

Dinner is a quiet affair, Alfred and he sitting together at one end of the dining table as they pick their way through the leftovers from the previous evening.

“Did you read the morning papers, sir?”

“No. I missed them.”

“I saved them for you. They’re outside your bedroom door.”

“Then I missed them twice.”

“It sounds like Halley’s Circus may have left behind something rather unpleasant.”

Bruce nods around a bite of cold salmon. He has a dinner engagement in two night’s time. If the problem hasn’t taken care of itself he can deal with it then.

It’s easy to get your hands on Gotham General’s stash of laughing gas if you really want to. They don’t lock their back doors, so you can set off a canister to clear the room and use it’s tail end to bash the head in on anyone who tries to stop you.

If you want to, of course. If you want to, you can do anything.

He goes to department stores after hours to keep himself in the latest fashions, with blood on his shoes and a spring in his step. He likes the colour purple, how it offsets his bright green hair. A long lady’s jacket in mauve velvet thrown over his onesie, a tube of rouge lipstick swirled around his mouth till it builds him a second skin. When he catches his reflection, lit by the paltry yellow light from the streetlights outside, he looks like a child’s drawing of a clown. Too many colours, the little black dot on his nose vanishing into the dark.

You won’t see that at Halley’s. He takes another huff on the gas and wanders out into the night. The working girls queuing up on the corner want nothing to do with him, and neither do their johns rushing back home to their wives. Someone might try to mug him though, if he’s lucky, and that’s when the party will really start.

There’s a thing in the corner of the alleyway, wreaking of solvents and smothered in grime. It looks up as the Batman passes and laughs.

Bruce pauses at the foot of the fire escape, his curiosity piqued. He crouches down low and tries to twist his voice into something that’s not his own. “What are you?”

“I’m you.” The thing replies, it’s voice deep like a man’s but wandering, unable to find its cadence. Gotham accent, with just a dash of Irish and an Eastern European lilt on the last vowel that throws Bruce off entirely.

“What are you doing out here?”

“Whatever you’re doing, honey.” It lifts its head. In the gloom, it’s hair looks green.

A shiver runs down Bruce’s spine. The GCPD will arrest this thing as soon as they look at it. And what would they think of him, a giant bat?

“You look like you’re off to one hell of a party.” The thing says. “You should come find me when it’s done. I’ll show you what the sunrise looks like, down by the docks.”

Bruce looks again, looks harder. White face paint, a smudged spot on the end of it’s nose. The papers said that a clown had been spotted near the scene of several murders, but that sounds like the kind of joke the gangs tell the police to throw them off the scent. He blinks, and the space that used to hold the thing becomes empty.

Batman launches himself back to ground level and picks his way through the garbage littering the floor. There’s nothing here, even when you’re really looking.

With a faint hiss, the lamp out on the street goes out, plunging him into darkness. The Batman blends into it, and one of these days he might even make it work.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on my [tumblr](https://jeffersonhairpie.tumblr.com/). You can also find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/chadfuture_)  
> Comments are love!


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